


How's the Diet, Mycroft?

by Slashify



Series: Slashify's Headcanons [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Holmes Brothers, M/M, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slashify/pseuds/Slashify
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft Holmes never had a weight problem, so why does Sherlock ask after his diet?</p>
            </blockquote>





	How's the Diet, Mycroft?

Mycroft adored Allan Porter, so of course Sherlock couldn't stand the man. He was a pastry chef in an upscale restaurant where Mycroft often took work associates when a meal was required. He was tall, with artfully styled blond hair and hazel eyes. He wore a white chef's jacket which did nothing to hide his athletic build, and which he had adorned with a badge on one shoulder that Mycroft recognized as a football team logo, though he couldn't tell you which team.

Allan introduced himself to Mycroft one night after one of his table mates had sent their complements on his creme brûlée. He locked eyes with the 'minor government official' while he shook his hand. He licked his lips and Mycroft remembers thinking that the man was a minx. They went home with each other's phone numbers.

Two months of expensive dates later, for which Mycroft usually paid, Allan asked Mycroft to be his boyfriend. Mycroft enthusiastically accepted. They spent so much time together that Mycroft's work actually started slipping a little, a civil war almost breaking out in Africa on one notable occasion when Mycroft treated them to a week in Cabo San Lucas and Allan had turned off Mycroft's phone without his knowledge.

During most of their relationship, Sherlock was a brat about it. He had despised Allan Porter from the moment he laid eyes on him.

"He's insufferable, Mycroft! You just can't see it because he makes you cakes, and I think it's high time you went on a diet!"

About a year after they met, Mycroft brought Allan around to a party at the Holmes estate. He had been making his rounds, rubbing elbows with boring people full of even more boring stories, when he glanced over to the bar and saw Sherlock and Allan standing close together. He excused himself from the retelling of a story he'd heard at least seven times and hurried over to the pair to stop what he was certain would be a rather loud fight. When he reached them, however, Sherlock looked flustered and Allan just put his arm around Mycroft and herded him out to the balcony, asking about the koi pond they could see on the grounds.

Mycroft shrugged it off, thinking that Sherlock had been rude and Allan had put him in his place. Hopefully that would be the end of it. But it didn't stop. Each time the three of them attended the same function he would, at some point, find his boyfriend with Sherlock. Each time, the young genius was more flustered than the last.

Finally, Mycroft asked Allan just what it was that he and Sherlock talked about, and why his unflappable brother always seemed so... Flapped... Afterwards.

"Well, Darling, I didn't want to say anything, but I think the boy has a bit of a crush on me. He keeps hinting that I've chosen the wrong Holmes. I think he's just shaken up because he's embarrassed and he doesn't want to get caught flirting with big brother's boyfriend. But it's harmless, Darling! Of course I've told him that I'm very happy with you, but he just won't take the hint, poor dear."

Mycroft was baffled. Sherlock had never shown interest in anyone, romantically or sexually. He had been fairly sure the lad was asexual. And hinting? Flirting? It just didn't sound like Sherlock. His brother hated Allan. Of course schoolboys often bullied the children they really liked, and Sherlock was more like a child in many ways than a young man, but he'd never been anything approaching ordinary. He'd never 'pulled pigtails'. He was bluntly honest, often to the point of making people cry. If he said he disliked Allan, Mycroft was inclined to believe him. Perhaps he was running an experiment, but Mycroft couldn't let him continue.

When Mycroft confronted Sherlock in the manor's practice room, and explained that even for science it was inappropriate to flirt with your brother's intended, Sherlock had huffed indignantly, glared at Mycroft, and stomped off to his room without a word. Well, as much as one could stomp in ballet shoes. Mycroft would have to thank Mummy, again, for putting Sherlock in lessons when they were younger. He played a little tune on the piano, sighed at himself in one of the many floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and went to have tea with a dignitary from... Somewhere.

It was at a party one month later when the truth came out loudly and messily in the manor's ballroom. Mycroft was mingling as usual when he spotted Sherlock cornering Allan by the canapés. Much as he wanted to put a stop to these encounters, he also wanted to hear what his brother thought of as flirting, so he casually took a hiding place within earshot.

"-Dare you tell my brother that I wanted anything to do with you? You know very well that I find you repulsive. I would sooner engage in relations with one of my dissection cadavers."

"Ooh, kinky! Come now Sherlock. Your brother has no complaints about what I do to him. Don't you want to find out how it feels? You think I can make that big brain of yours go blank? Think I can get the only word you remember to be my name until you're screaming it? Think of it as research, if you want. Think of my hands on your-" Sherlock cut Allan off as his hand reached out for the younger boy.

"If you touch me I will kill you slowly, painfully, and no one will ever find your body. That's not a threat, Mr. Porter, it is a fact. I have told you I'm not interested in you in every way known to the English language, as well as a few others, and the only reason I have not told Mycroft of this is because it would break him. For some reason, he thinks you have value, and contrary to popular belief, I do not wish to see him come to harm. Now, I will say again, I am not interested in you, I will never have sex with you, so stop propositioning me!"

"Yes," Mycroft said, stepping out into the open, "I think that would be for the best."

"Mycroft-" Allan started, his eyes wide with surprise. He knew he'd been caught.

"Get out of my sight." Mycroft said loudly, just as the music stopped to fade into another song. Conversations ground to a halt. All eyes were on him as he gently put his hand on Sherlock's arm.

"I'm- I didn't-" Sherlock stuttered.

"Are you okay?" Mycroft asked him, his eyes softer than Sherlock had seen them since he was a very young boy. He nodded. The party picked up again, couples dancing and drinking as security escorted Mr. Allan Porter off of the grounds.

Sherlock and Mycroft didn't speak directly of the man ever again. However, two weeks after the scene at the manor a box was delivered to Mycroft's office bearing the logo from Allan's restaurant. It contained a slice of chocolate cake with blackberry ganache. His phone rang and Sherlock was on the other end.

"How's the diet?"

Mycroft smashed the cake to crumbs and chocolate ooze and sent it back to Allan's restaurant. The message must have been received, because Allan never tried to contact him again. Every time Mycroft was lonely, every time he considered ringing Allan, Sherlock was there.

Later it became a give and take.

"Are you clean, Sherlock?"

"Yes, and how's the diet, Mycroft?"

The Holmes boys often spoke in codes, to each other, to everyone else, but this one, which was always seen as rudeness, resentment, hatred, pettiness, was their favorite of all.


End file.
